


The way around, the way through

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Firefly, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-11
Updated: 2006-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-21 23:18:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're like Simon. Simon keeps me from going too far. Always takes the way around, instead of the way through."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The way around, the way through

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I don't know either.

The girl is a bundle of rags with a tangle of black hair falling down her back, over her face, moon-pale. She huddles by the dumpster behind the Leaky Cauldron. She's been there for three days now, waning.

 _Wolf_ , she whispers when he walks by, and he pretends he doesn't hear. Everyone knows who-- _what_ \--he is these days, and though he's played his part again in Voldemort's war, people still shrink away from him in the street. Though he's given until there is nothing left to give, he has never been hailed a hero. Never wanted to be, really, though on days when he has to scrounge to heat his flat, he thinks the pension would be nice.

"Hero's someone who gets other people killed," the girl says, her voice louder, stronger. She looks down at her hands, milk-white under the grime, nails jagged, arms lined with scabs, then holds them up to him in supplication.

The wind is picking up and it looks like rain, and for once he has money in his pocket ( _take it, Professor, please. Sirius would have wanted--_

 _If Sirius had wanted he would have_ \--but he doesn't say the words, just takes the purse from Harry's outstretched hand)

so he wraps his fingers around her wrists and lifts her to her feet. Which are bare, or would be but for the dirt coating them, dark and dry against dainty toes and elegant ankles. She sways in the wind, and he swings her up into his arms. She's light as a doll, her bones a bundle of dry sticks in his embrace, ready for the fire.

He thinks about taking her inside, getting her a room and a hot meal, but when he turns towards the door, she shudders like a scared child and shakes her head violently. "No, no, no, no." He bites back a sigh and Apparates them both back to his flat, which is small and chilly, but at least it keeps out the rain.

She shoves her way out of his arms when they arrive, falls to her knees, and is sick. He grabs her by the hair, matted and unwashed, and the flash of déjà vu is almost overpowering; he has to close his eyes and swallow against it.

"Velocity, time, distance. There then, here now," she says, looking up at him wide-eyed. "Time doesn't flow in one direction; we're all branches on the tree of time, cherry blossoms on the wind."

"Right. Upsy-daisy," he says, yanking her upright and scourgifying the floor. "Bath or food first?"

She makes a face. "Bath."

She has no sense of modesty; she sheds her clothes like a toddler as she walks along the short hallway to the bathroom. He doesn't think they're salvageable, but he still has a few of Tonks's old things. They can be transfigured to fit.

"Shout if you need anything," he tells her, hanging a clean towel on the rack for her, but she's not paying him any attention now; she's sniffing the soap and the shampoo--store brand on sale from Tesco--and wrinkling her nose.

He pours a couple of cans of chicken noodle soup into a pot and sets it on the stove, then pulls out bread and ham and cheese. He feels a small sense of triumph when he notices he still has pickles left. Sirius was fond of pickles, and he always keeps them in the house, just in case.

She comes out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, wet hair hanging down her back, black against the worn white towel she's wrapped around herself. She's even younger than he first thought.

He means to ask why she isn't at school, but instead he just says, "Pickles?"

Her smile is wide and infectious. "And tea and soup?"

He smiles back, and it feels real, natural. "If you like."

"I like very much. _Xièxie_."

Though the meaning is clear, the language is not. "I'm sorry, I don't speak--"

"Chinese? Really?" She looks down into the mug of tea he's just poured her, and the smile is gone from her face. "Of course you don't. You wouldn't, now." She raises the mug, closes her eyes and inhales. "When is now?"

"Excuse me?"

"When am I? I know I'm not then, but how far before--"

"It's November," he says. "You're in London."

Her eyes widen again; she jumps up and grabs the newspaper from the counter. "Too far, too far," she mutters. "Time flows in all directions. Tried to go back, save what was lost, but rivers flow one way only. Trapped in the currents now." She looks at him, hollow-eyed, sad. "I always go too far. Simon says--" That makes her giggle. "You're like Simon. Simon keeps me from going too far. Always takes the way around, instead of the way through."

"Not always," he replies, stung, and not sure why.

She cocks her head, studies him. "No," she says softly. "Not always."

They eat in silence, though the questions are tumbling through his mind.

"I was better," she says finally. She holds his gaze, intensely focused. "I was not--not River, not a girl, not anything but broken pieces--but I was getting better, and it wasn't a lie this time. Oh, brave new world, that has such creatures in it. Monsters and angels, and fireflies to the rescue. Simon--He tries, but he doesn't _listen_. I listened, with my ears, and with my heart, and I learned, and I heard the rush of time, dipped my foot in the stream, and got carried away."

"My dear girl," he says, because he can think of nothing else to say that isn't obvious.

"My name is River and I am. It's cloudy here, all the time. I've only been here a week and I miss the stars. The black."

It escapes before he can stop it, like a sigh curling in the air from his lips. "Me, too."

She takes his hands, excited now. "You do. You really do. Special star in a personal sky, but still." She whirls away from him, into the tiny living room off the kitchenette with all the grace of a dancer. Her towel begins to slip and he remembers the clothes. Tonks didn't leave much behind, but there is a pair of black jeans and a faded t-shirt with a rainbow on the front. He transfigures one of his threadbare flannels into a passable pair of knickers and turns to find her standing behind him.

"The conversion of one thing into another. Can you teach me?"

"I--"

But she's already moved past him to look at the photographs on the dresser--she stares at the one of Tonks, smiles in delight when Tonks waves at her, hair changing from pink to blue and back again.

"Where is she?"

It doesn't hurt as much anymore to say, "She left."

"You didn't ask her to stay." He sucks in a breath, ready to refute that with the answers he's learned by rote, _it was mutual, just didn't work out, for the best really,_ but she's not done. "I understand. She can be anything, and you have to be you or you're nothing but the monster trying to claw its way out. Can't be anything else." She runs a hand through her hair. "Hard to love a broken toy." She picks up the photo of Sirius next, taken that last Christmas at Grimmauld Place, and turns it this way and that in her hands. Then she looks up at him with that steady stare, and he feels oddly vulnerable. "Someone did once, though. Before her."

"Yes," he says. "Once."

"Simon's waiting for me," she says fiercely. "Simon and Mal and Serenity. They won't leave me behind."

"I'm sure they're trying their best," he says, wincing at how feeble it sounds.

"He didn't want to leave you behind, either," she continues, as if he hadn't spoken, wide brown eyes glistening with compassion, understanding, "but when the door opens, some of us always go through."

He looks away, tries to exercise his rusty Occlumency skills, but it's already too late. He tries to gather the shreds of his dignity and change the subject. "Time travel is very dangerous." He offers her the handful of clothing. She lets it fall to the bed and picks through the meager items. "In the morning, we can go see someone who knows a bit about it. I have a friend...." He thinks of Hermione, huddled in her small office at the Department of Mysteries, and wonders if even magic can help River, wonders if she's insane, and if he's insane to believe her. "You got here, so there must be some way to send you home."

"I know the way home, but I can't do it alone. Have to go through, not around. The door is open, but the way is veiled." He goes cold at that, but she doesn't seem to notice.

She drops her towel, pulls on the t-shirt and crawls into his bed, sighing like a sleepy child. She pats the bed and he sits next to her, awkward, unsure. "I'm not crazy. The monsters are real. They look like men, but they're evil inside. They made me like this." Even though he doesn't move a muscle, his whole body recoils. She reaches out and takes his hand, and he lets her, though he doesn't want to. "You think you're a monster, but you're good inside, and kind. All tea and damp wool and wet dog smell that lingers in the furniture after the rain has gone." She squeezes his hand gently, and he relaxes. "We have the same scars, inside and out. Just different ways of wearing them." She falls asleep quickly, still holding his hand.

He brushes the still-wet hair off her forehead and hopes, for her sake, that her faith is not misplaced.

end

~*~


End file.
